In a tough hiring market, you need the very best out of your people. Boosting business productivity means getting the best out of the employees you have. To really make things work, your employees need to be engaged, trained and properly armed with the right tools.
Check Employee Engagement
Recent world events have a lot of folks worried about the safety of their families. They may be concerned about finances, concerned about elderly relatives and fragile family members, or just trying to keep everyone housed and fed. Work stress can quickly turn into the thing that they are willing to turn away from.
If you notice that a formerly engaged employee is losing their mojo, it’s time for a conversation. You may struggle to get information from them; this can be an indication that your position is intimidating to them. Change up your location. Get a coffee, get out for a walk around the block or go grab lunch. They may be angry, despairing or just tired. Be open; their productivity may be quickly freed up by one tough conversation.
Train Continuously
The world of technology is expanding rapidly. You can support your employees to boost their productivity with staffing webinars, in person training or buddy training.
If you have a spreadsheet whiz and another employee who is struggling, some shoulder to shoulder training could improve both productivity and relationships. Allow these folk to set training appointments and make sure that both employees can check in to share their experiences and skills shared and gained. Do be aware of different learning styles; some folks need to break things and then fix them to really understand how something works. Give them time.
Provide The Best Tools
Everyone on your team needs the most up to date tech you can provide. A subscription to the easy updates and support is a great start. If you’re going to allow some team members to work from home, make sure your team members also have easy access to support and quality machinery to use in their home office.
To that end, make sure that your training tools include information on the best security habits and practices to use to avoid any data breaches caused by remote workers. Many responsible employees can easily forget and walk away from an unlocked machine. If they have a child or a repair technician in the house, your data could be at risk.
Provide Schedule Flexibility
Does everyone in your firm work from 8 to 5? Is that still a valid schedule? If you have folks working remotely or working from home as well as coming to the office, it’s time to take a hard look at your schedule expectations, particularly when it comes to your support staff.
You may well have support staff who need to work from 8 to 5; it works best for them and their families. You may also have some staff who would love to
- shorten their lunch and work from 6:30 to 3
- cut out their lunch break and work from 10 to 6
- come in at 5 to access data from a different time zone
You won’t know until you ask. You can couch this in a variety of ways. Everyone is looking for a better work life balance. Parents with small children may need a different schedule than those close to retirement. Be aware that this is not a change that you can impose without a lot of pushback. Offer your willingness to consider these changes and see what blooms.
Share Information On Critical Workloads
Not every member of your management or leadership team will be busy at the same time. If you have one member of management who is facing a big deadline to serve a client who is not easy to please, make sure staff and support are aware of this. Like it or not, this manager’s projects will need to come to the top of the priority pile to meet big goals. If everyone is aware, everyone can communicate monitor the workload.
This habit of sharing can have a positive long-term impact. Not only will these managers get on-time support, but shared ownership of tough projects will increase the chance that such challenges will get timely help next year as well. Great communication improves buy-in.
Eve Anderson is a quirky, sharp, and meticulous copywriter with a bachelor’s in communications from Washington State University. She loves exploring antique stores, roaming redwood forests, and critiquing the absurdities of modern civilization.
